


Behind the Curtain

by lunaseemoony



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Single Father (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pete's World, Photography, Post-Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 06:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4380383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/pseuds/lunaseemoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Tiler is the one man in Britain who’s not completely enamored with the charming and captivating Vitex heiress. There’s something chilling behind her smile, and he’s determined to figure out what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind the Curtain

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is for vanderventure's prompt

 

It was the first job he took after Rita. He would have loved to devote all of his time to the bairns, and on some days he felt like Sarah, Beatty, Anna and Tanya saw them more than he did. He needed more time to heal, and they needed the world. But their timing would never be perfect. And it was hard not to be thrilled by the news. Pete Tyler’s publicist called him, citing that the man himself requested Dave’s services. And if the photos were to their liking, the promise of an official title hung in the air. Anna had been getting on his case lately, and he’d pretty shamelessly shoved this job in her face to shut her up.

But he put all that past him. Everything fizzled away when he was on the job. He could even disregard the feeling that he might be swallowed up by the massive Tyler mansion. He had one job, and that was to take photographs of the private Vitex gala. He had a particular knack for disappearing into crowds when he had a camera in hand. If he was a lion, the cream of the crop laid out before him would be nothing more than a pack of zebras. Dave felt as though he could finally breathe and relax again with his favorite camera in hand. It was his third appendage, his most reliable companion, and source of peace. It was everything. It captured the world in such a way that memories never could.

There was one memory that was difficult to capture, however, because it was his own. There was no replacing the way her entrance into the room sucked all the air from his lungs. No photo could accurately capture that, as much as he loved them. She came in separately from everyone else. And judging by the well guarded expression she put up the moment she sauntered in, her presence at this official event was compulsory. It had to be the way most of her social calendar was filled up. Britain’s latest obsession had to be everywhere all at once, particularly at an official Vitex even if nothing else. She owned the crowds that she weaved and mingled through. Her smile was so well schooled he wondered if she was a secret agent by daylight.

If she was, were her smiles real while she worked? If anyone was an expert on a real smile it would be him, and every one he’d seen her flash since she mysteriously appeared on the media’s radar was completely faked. She did it well, mind. She had a way of touching people, placing a hand on their shoulders and laughing. It was darling. She was darling, with a smile that could thaw even the coldest heart. Nobody seemed to care that the Tylers produced a 21 year old child out of nowhere. And though everyone with access to a telly or a newspaper considered her a sweetheart for it, Dave always wondered how they were so easily fooled. Either that or an entire country was humoring her, because the woman behind Rose Tyler’s sugary smile couldn’t have been so happy.

He found it all in her eyes, even as she waggled her fingers at him and blew a kiss just for the camera. That was what usually won her the first few pages in the magazines, he noted. Her little dimples and angelic smile nearly caught him. And her eyes were certainly captivating. She had him follower her through the event just from those eyes. But there was a certain life missing from them, a cold chill behind her smile that almost felt threatening. It was wholly unfair, because she looked stunning in her glittering black dress. It was strapless, revealing her soft and slender shoulders, with a long slit up the side up to her thigh. That being said, Dave wasn’t the only man following the impenetrable heiress around. With a true smile, or in the very least a real emotion, Dave could get a photo that rivaled anything he’d taken in months. It wouldn’t be for Vitex but for his own peace of mind. He hated photographing anything fake. If he’d been hired by a botanic garden he certainly wasn’t going to capture the fake flowers on the front desk instead.

Dave was the only one with the stones to follow the Tyler women out onto the garden. By all appearances it was private, as the event was inside. But as long as Rose refused to give him a real smile he was determined to sneak in a candid shot for himself. The woman had to smile some time. Deep inside, beneath Rose’s layers of frustration and masked sweetness there had to be a tender, happy soul with a smile that really could melt hearts. So Dave sneaked behind them and knelt down in the open doorway awaiting one such a smile. But it would never come.

“You’re killing your dad, sweetheart,” Jackie Tyler chided in a smooth, buttery tone as she sat down with her daughter on a cozy bench amongst some bushes. They were facing him, but couldn’t be bothered to look. “This gala is really important to him. And you’re walking about like you want to kill someone.”

Rose rolled her eyes. He caught it perfectly. “So what if I do? I could be at work right now mum!” she fired up, hands crumpling and clutching her dress with a quiet fury. “What am I doing here? What good is all this? It’s pointless!”

“Not to your dad it isn’t. You could at least try a real smile, darling. It breaks my heart too, you know.” Jackie softened, and fixed her daughter’s dress while smoothing her hands over her thighs.

Rose looked away and pursed her lips. She wanted to be anywhere but there, it was written all over. This was real, raw, completely exposed. Dave’s stomach lurched and his chest tightened a little. A twinge of guilt prickled his skin beneath his leather jacket. But he couldn’t pick his legs up to walk away. Now she was the perfect subject, with the twinkling garden lights behind her making up a bit of an ironic backdrop. The lights lit up, yes, but like Rose’s faked smiles earlier they weren’t real, just fabricated. He could couple these pictures of the light leaving Rose’s eyes, the smile evaporating from her face, and her sweet little dimples fading away with the ones he’d taken earlier.

“How can you say that, mum? You of all people should understand how hard this is,” Rose shrugged her shoulders away from her mother bitterly and frowned.

“Yes, and d'you think I would have raised a happy little girl if I didn’t try my hardest? We had it rough, you and me. But we managed. And look where we are now, eh? You know  _he’d_  want you to enjoy it just a little, have a little fun.”

Her lips blubbered a bit and her eyes glistened. She was perfection, and it made his heart begin to ache again, even with his camera in hand. Rose had lost someone, just as he had. No wonder it bothered him so much. Rose was doing just what he was trying to do, only she was much better at it. If only she knew.

“Without him?” she pursed her lips and swallowed hard. She was trying with all her might not to cry, and as beautiful as it was to capture, it made his own eyes feel swollen with grief.

“Alright, look at it this way. D'you think he’d want to see you like this? That’s not what he needs, sweetheart. Lord knows I’ve hated that man, but no matter where he is you know how important it is that he stay strong.” Jackie reached for her daughter’s shoulder and brought her over so Rose could lean on her. “He needs you to try to stay strong too. I doubt he’s having a barrel of laughs right now. But I’d wager he’s doing what he can.”

The tears burst forth at that moment, and Dave lowered his camera after taking only one picture. He only needed one, and taking any more didn’t feel right. He wasn’t getting his smile that night. Who knew if he ever would? What he did know was that rather ironically it was this that him sold to her cause just like everyone else. Rose was a real girl with a huge aching heart. And no wonder she guarded it so well. He could see her heartache streaking down her face.

“He shouldn’t be alone, mum. And I  _miss_  him! I still remember… we started to… just before Canary Wharf we started to… he would… I know you don’t want to hear it… but he would come in for a little cuddle every night before I fell asleep. And now I just can’t… without him behind me. Sometimes I… sometimes I wake up and think a pillow is him and I…”

“Shh,” Jackie soothed. “It’s better than what I thought you were going to say,” she mused with a sigh.

“The cannon won’t… every time we try it just… it’s going to take months to fix it this time…” Rose sobbed into her mother’s chest.

“You’ll get it to work. I know you will. The things I’ve seen you do. A stupid cannon won’t get in your way for long. I thought this was what I wanted, having you back and all. But this? Seeing my baby girl like this, Rose? Don’t you worry, sweetheart, if I have to I’ll get that bloody cannon to work myself.”

After that night, Dave became the Tylers’ official photographer for Vitex events. But after that day, his camera gave up its pursuit of her smile. She never saw him, but Dave always looked in on her. He couldn’t possibly understand what on Earth Jackie and Rose meant by some cannon, or why it was stressing Rose so much. But he still hoped for a day where he could witness Rose’s real smile, because she deserved it. After that night, when he met the tender soul behind the Vitex heiress, somewhere deep down he knew she deserved it. He had hope for her, because for her there was still a possibility of being reunited with her first love.


End file.
